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Thursday, March 14, 2013

Medea in Medea: Character Thursday (54)

Medea—whose name became the title of this Greek play of
Euripides—is the leading female character in this play. She is neither
protagonist nor antagonist; to me, she is just a victim.

Medea was a young woman from a barbarian country, I suspect,
a less civilian one. She abandoned her land and her family because she was in
love with Jason. Both young lovers arrived in Corinth and decided to stay in
this new country after they were married. I imagined that Medea had been
growing up as an independent girl, and she was used to make decision by
herself. Entering a marriage life, Medea must obey her husband and accept him,
good or bad, as her superior. This must have been quite tough for a young woman
of freedom. Medea felt that women were in a weaker position when affronted with
the husbands. Men, even after marriage, could have mistresses without ruining
his honor, but women couldn’t; they were supposed to be faithful to their
husbands.

When Medea knew that Jason would like to marry another
girl—daughter of King of Corinth—she was enraged. She felt that after all she
must have been sacrificing for the marriage (her freedom, her full obeisance,
her submissiveness), she was helpless to her husband’s selfish want. Medea did
not have anywhere to run, either she must live bitterly with his husband’s
infidelity, or she would be disgraced for divorcing her husband.

The wound from being abandoned by Jason, and her hopeless
situation, were more than enough to be born by an independent and self-esteem
woman. That was perhaps which lead Medea into her half madness. She could not
control her temper, and after the rage was accumulated, she decided to take
avenge by murdering everyone who has ruined her life. Considering how she was
brought up in a less civilian culture, killing others should not be a strange
things; that’s why I think we could not accused Medea of being suddenly mad; it
has been in her blood.

The most interesting point in this play is when Medea went
forth and back to decide whether she should kill her two sons to ruin their
father, or bring them with her in her banishment. I think Medea had her own
selfishness too, for, in this matter, she never thought about the kids, but for
her own feeling. When she declined from killing them, it’s not because of the
kids, but because she felt the
affection for them. When she made herself to kill them, it’s more of her needs
to take avenge to their father, than to deprive them of the disgrace they might
have to endure.

So, in short, it was first her own personal character (being
selfish), then the way she was beought, but more than those, the society which
did not support women, caused more fracture in the already corrupted soul of
Medea, and made her even worse to a level which we call madness.

That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of
book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the
linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you
read? See the details of Character Thursday first.